Jihad
by MaggiSakura
Summary: It's their personal Jihad, their holy struggle. But Ichigo finds himself more often on the ground than standing and looking like the regal King he's supposed to be.


**A/N:** Alright Bleach fans, I've got to say this is not my favourite fandom but I've decided to pay a tribute to it since I collect the series and like its style (though the plot is non-existent). This one is quite the complicated but I'll explain everything in the footnotes.

* * *

_Poor boy, who in the world told you to go and eat the fruit._

_How sad, the boy became mad._

_We can hear your anguish and airborne smell of sweat. You're afraid of the madness inside your heart - the one which shows in your eyes.  
_

_Ochre eyes with hollow mask and casks of blood delivered from the upside down city. _

How many times did the boy cry and for how many times did he seek salvation.

_There's no salvation; there is no death. _

Death does not cry - it is known. Death did not cry - that much was known. Then we see the Fireborn, the old and scarred man, with Ryuujinjakka burning his flesh. The ochre burns in your eyes.

_You kill. You conquer. You are the one and only King._

The boy fears everything yet nothing. His eyes do not see as he's blind (_ochre sees, ochre knows_). Blind to his hollow or blind to his pain; he's in tumult.

The boy stopped on his tracks. He has to be mad. He has to move but he has stopped and has turned around to see what lies in the past, what goes behind his back. He sees a battle of prowess between white and black. There's balance and the 'cling' 'clang' noises made by their swords interest him.

_The mask and crown are heavy upon his head and Ryuujinjakka burns bright like a pyre._

Unbearable isn't it? That fear in your heart.

_He fears of burning to dust - his ash scattered to the skies and the skies are not his own endless blue inside himself but those of a strange world. Soul Society. _

_You're so hollow._

_Your ochre craves the fire, the challenge and power._

The bottomless pit is the one going through your chest as Ulquiorra lets go. It's the one that's there after every defeat and after every Cero shot through you. The mask breaks and for some reason that makes you more afraid than anything.

_The King should not weep, he should not feel fear._

_ Feel apprehension for the future and feel victory! You are no merciless conqueror after all. _

_The white takes over as the cross goes over your chest and you're reborn after the war. You are no death. You are not your own power nor the sideway city of your sword. _

Your skin has turned white and you're paler.

How scary, you look like a languishing ghost.

It is scary. Your body's withering away.

_Ryuujinjakka burns brighter than any man alive. You feel its heat and flames lick your face. Your mask has long crumbled and you stand down._

The Hollow cries reach the skies.

You're not afraid of the fire after all but your own shadow. You feel the horned creature inside. What is it that makes you so horrified if not the color of blinding white?

_The white is brighter than Ryuujinjakka. It's more distinct and brazen than the shadows._

And Ichigo remembers waking up on a battlefield, in the midst of a great combat. His vision is tilted and copper blood is attacking his senses - his body feels hot, the red going down from his chest to his feet and face. He feels dead but lifts his sword.

"_**Last warning boy. If you really wanna control my powers, be sure to not get killed until I decide to appear again!"**_

His ochre is warning and waning. Ichigo can feel the white gazing at him.

He shouts and prays to his own god but hears no answer. There's only blood and gore and the battlefield and Ryuujinjakka is dead, gone with its owner. There's no more fire but something sinister and deadlier lurking behind his eyes. He whispers to his sword and it answers. Zangetsu always does.

But his hollow doesn't. The mask evades him and crumbles as if made from plaster of Paris.

_The color chart ends with white. White is all colors together and black is where the colors come from. The light portrays this but it is betrayed by human eye. You see colors yet no white and claim it is empty, it is nothing. But white is everything._

_You begin with black but he exists as white._

"My King." It bows deeply and puts its hand to its chest. Yet you feel you are anything but royalty. "Your horse is displeased."

"Are you taking over again?" Ichigo asks, his hand on no sword's handle. Zangetsu has disappeared, the younger boy/man gone somewhere blue and where it does not rain.

There's no shaking throne in this world that can hold power without being consumed. Aizen has proven that, Soul Society's king has proven that, the Quincies, the Hollows and Japanese economy has proven that. Nevertheless, this can hardly be called a putsch.

"You reap what you sow," the Hollow says, his garb entitling him the King and not the Horse. He's carried Ichigo for so long...

_There's no Ryuujinjakka nor Aizen but only white Zangetsu, which is swung down with force laced with bitterness and victory. Ichigo closes his eyes._

The throne turns around.

* * *

First of all, you can see Ichigo's growth in this...poem-kind-of-thing. At first he's afraid and doesn't even know what the hell that white thing is (his unnamed Hollow. I refuse to call him with ridiculous names like Shirosaki or Ogichi) but then he gradually gets to know it and realizes that it's just a manifestation of his own power. Yet he fears that power too because it's not directly under his control. That Hollow is someone you have to dominate; it's not nice and doesn't bend its will like Zangetsu does, when you promise it something nice. You have to drive it to the ground, make it see you're its superior - In other words _the King_ and _the Conqueror_. But Ichigo is not a true King and definitely doesn't have the traits of a conqueror so his hold over the hollow dwindles and dissipates over time.

Ryuujinjakka and Yamamoto refer to the outside power that is superior to the Hollow, so it stays back and is fascinated with them. They're kind of like holding the hollow back and giving Ichigo courage but also reminding him that everything has to end. The flames also have a symbolic meaning but I think you can figure that out on your own.

But then again, the Hollow does have some respect for Ichigo and that's why Ichigo's loss of the throne and the conclusion of their personal Jihad disappoints it. That explains the bitterness at the end because through all their time together Ichigo has been the King and for it to lose its King like this is a disgrace.

Ichigo is also afraid of losing the favour of his hollow because he's wise enough to know that he needs the other.

Long ass explanation is long.


End file.
